Netgear R7800 + Wifi On/Off button = unable to enable wlan

Linux howto's, compile information, information on whatever we learned on working with linux, MACOs and - of course - Products of the big evil....
Post Reply
User avatar
peter_b
Chatterbox
Posts: 370
Joined: Tue Nov 12, 2013 2:05 am

Netgear R7800 + Wifi On/Off button = unable to enable wlan

Post by peter_b »

[PROBLEM]
I own a Netgear R7800. I am highly disappointed of this device! :x (*)
(Warning: This "howto fix ..." post contains ranting about Netgear.)

Anyways:
When pushing the "Wifi On/Off"-button (2nd from the right) for 2s (as instructed in the manual), the WiFi goes off - but never goes back on again. Pressing the button for however long you wish: Nothing happens. The light doesn't go back on. :evil:

Even worse: The checkboxes to enable Wifi (both frequencies) is grayed out in the web-interface.
Saying:
"(This action is currently disabled until the wireless On/Off button is [~~pressed~~] [held for 2-5s. Not longer!])"

[SOLUTION

I've added the duration at the end, because the light doesn't go back on until like forever after - but nothing happens if you just press it shortly.
If the Wifi-enabled LED won't light back up, check the Web-Config-UI again: If the "enable wireless router radio" checkboxes are available again, you may enable them and hit "Apply".

Feels like an awkward workaround. Sometimes just holding the button long enough (but not "too" long), switched it back on - as I assumed would be the norm behavior in the first place.



(*)
The R7800: I've had nothing but troubles with it, in ways that feel like crappy hardware and buggy firmware. I bought it 1 year ago, and there's still warranty on the hardware, yet it's impossible to contact anyone at Netgear (**) at all before even engaging in an SNR action. Not cool. Not professional. Not customer friendly. Netgear writes in your
The router completely resets to factory defaults when it loses power - or is turned off (power button) for longer than a few minutes. Netgear! Seriously?! I was never disappointed by your devices. So far.

Since I researched pre-buy on the web I read about the R7800 being *the* state of the art WiFi router to run an open OS on (like OpenWRT, etc), or at least patch it so you get a shell and proper GNU-fu magic powers for setting up challenging and creative network layouts.

(**) Seriously: Netgear disables all options to communicate with them after 1 year, even if hardware warranty is still up.
After that, you only get a message saying "too late. noone here for you."
Last week I emailed (! hooray! they provide a contact-us email address on their website. hint-hint, Netgear :x ) Quantum about a question with compiling some code of theirs: A *real person* (or really sneaky AI) answered within 24 hours. No support contract, whatsoever. They didn't even ask about the serial numbers of the drives (hint-hint, Asus! :evil: ) to provide initial support. Not a chatbot, but a person's salary - which we actually assumed we pay when buying stuff from vendors in the first place.
Post Reply